The newspaper industry when I came along in the mid-70s was rich and powerful and growing and hungry for material and open to new people. None of that is true in the newspaper industry today. Print in general is pretty rugged. The good thing is that you can gain a foothold on the Internet because everybody has access to it, even things like Twitter - I mean, you can get a reputation for being funny pretty quickly on Twitter, on a blog, that kind of thing.
It's a great time to be a comedian because you've got so much more control. You can say what you want to. I think in the old days with the studio system the performer was a bit of an afterthought. You can be a wildcard on the internet. But if you put something on the internet once it's out there it's out there for life.
Digitization has altered the nature of the film industry. Social media, especially, has become a decisive factor in determining a film's box office success.
Social media is the future, with employers recognizing they need to start hiring people with the right skills.
I never had the desire to be a professional Twitterer. Every now and then something dumb pops into my head and I'll tweet it. I don't feel any obligation to respond to everyone. Not that I don't appreciate people sending me messages on there, but there are too many. Responding to everyone would take away time for all the stuff I'm actually in the business for.
Wikipedia is kind of extreme, where a very, very small group of people contribute pretty much everything.
Facebook is not an unstoppable juggernaut. There are a lot of other things people can do on the web.
A lot of YouTubers get that mainstream celebrity, they get these big deals, maybe a book deal or a TV deal or whatever it is they aspired to do, and they kind of abandon ship on what got them to that point.
I started on Vine when I first started. My parents were pretty confused about it. They definitely weren't like, 'Don't do it,' but they also were definitely parents like, 'you have to go to college.' So they didn't really understand what the whole concept was and what it could possibly turn into.
I first discovered YouTube while browsing the web, and then I found people just talking into their cameras. I never even knew it was a thing you could do. William Sledd was my first YouTube obsession. He was so unapologetically himself, and just had fun talking to his audience about things that interested him. I thought - if he could do it, why couldn't I?
One of the wonderful things about the Internet is that it allows us to create lots of different kinds of content for lots of different kinds of people.
I'm fortunate to make any money as a blogger.
You don't have to own a TV network to go out and do a cool show.
My constant focus is on being better. Should I be doing multimedia video production? Or seminars on the Internet? How can I do what I'm already doing in a more forceful way?
Amazon has included me in an opportunity to provide top-shelf television-style programming live on the world's computer screens. To hold forth with the industry's very best actors, directors, musicians, authors - I'm thrilled to be on the cutting edge of this.
I wasn't aware of social media fame, it was more just making videos with my friends.
When I first started YouTubeing, the idea was, 'Oh, YouTube is going to be a stepping stone to get to other places,' and I just totally don't agree with that. I think YouTube is amazing. The digital space is amazing.
I think the pleasure of completed work is what makes blogging so popular. You have to believe most bloggers have few if any actual readers. The writers are in it for other reasons. Blogging is like work, but without coworkers thwarting you at every turn. All you get is the pleasure of a completed task.
In my view, the ebook world for both established and new authors is a terrific new and exciting format. It is a format that will bring forth many new writers to publishing.
I definitely have aspirations outside of YouTube, but I think there's a lot of people on YouTube who want to leave YouTube. I don't want to leave; I love it.
I began as a writer and started blogging in 2001, first on politics, anonymously.
I'm a soul maker. I write songs. I'm making cartoon shows. I'm planning on putting stuff out myself on my own, on a TV station online. I'm not limiting myself. I'm doing it all at once.
I gotta keep hustling. I know when it comes to the Internet, we move units. I grew up on the Internet.
Online leadership is about leveraging digital platforms such as blogs, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other networks to build a loyal following of people who want to learn more about and benefit from your experiences and expertise.
People don't appreciate that when you're on the Internet, it's a 24/7 job. Even if you're not releasing episodes, your show is living and breathing on the Internet because there's a community around it. Ninety percent of the work is after the web series is shot, and you have to constantly maintain your community, because it's all you have.
